Analysis of Whole-Body Vibration Exposure of Drill Machine Operators in Open Pit Iron Ore Mines

The purpose of this study was to evaluate health risks of blast-hole drill operators exposed to whole-body vibration (WBV), based on ISO standard 2631-1. Assessment of health risk associated with the blast-hole drill operators based on ISO 2631-1 criteria is limited. In the current study, operators' WBV exposure was measured in accordance with ISO 2631-1 using a tri-axial seat pad accelerometer at the operator/seat interface. WBV exposure was evaluated along all three orthogonal axes by frequency-weighted RMS acceleration and vibration dose value. Result of the study shows that mean frequency weighted RMS acceleration along Z-axis is dominant as compared to X and Y axis. In the case of VDV exposure, the mean VDV along Z-axis is also higher as compared to X and Y axis however magnitude of mean vector sum of VDV is lower compared to the Z-axis. The predicted health risk of operators based on daily RMS exposure shows that only 3.6 % of drill machine operators were found between the recommended upper and lower limit of health caution zone of ISO standard 2631-1. However, based on VDV evaluation method, all the drill machine operators were found above the recommended upper limit of health caution zone of ISO standard 2631-1. Thus, results observed in this study based on two methods for assessing the health risk of operators' are quite similar depending upon the method applied. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.